Literary criticism is generally bunk. Nonsense. Usually based on self-serving post-intellectual bullshit.

If there is work there is warmth, that when a man has freedom of movement it is enough, for then his blood is hot too

When stuck, hit the road.

I felt his hot tears and the loneliness of man and the sweetness of all men and the aching haunting beauty of the living

Almighty God, I am sorry I am now an atheist, but have You read Nietzsche?

So it happened at last: I was about to become a thief, a cheap milk-stealer. Here was your lash-in-the-pen genius, your one story-writer: a thief.

We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretense, she was not interested in my work. And when I answered, it was a pretense. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it. She had made it plain by her coming.